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{{Short description|English opera festival}}{{About|the Glyndebourne opera festival|the country house and opera house|Glyndebourne}}{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2024}}

factoids

>founders=John Christie (opera manager)>website={{URL|www.glyndebourne.com}}}}Glyndebourne Festival Opera is an annual opera festival held at Glyndebourne, an English country house near Lewes, in East Sussex, England.

History

Under the supervision of the Christie family, the festival has been held annually since 1934, except in 1941–45 during World War II and 1993 when the theatre was being rebuilt, for a 1994 reopening. Gus Christie, son of Sir George Christie and grandson of festival founder John Christie, became festival chairman in 2000.NEWS,weblink Dad assures me we're in the best condition ever, The Telegraph, Rupert Christiansen, 1 May 2001, 25 March 2007, (File:Glyndebourne 2.jpg|thumb|left|Glyndebourne House, 1 August 2006)Since the company's inception, Glyndebourne has been particularly celebrated for its productions of Mozart operas.JOURNAL, 920186, McN., W., The Mozart Festival at Glyndebourne, The Musical Times, 76, 1109, 646, July 1935, 10.2307/920186, Recordings of Glyndebourne's past historic Mozart productions have been reissued.NEWS,weblink Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro, Gencer/ Freni/ Bacquier/ Blankenburg/ RPO/ Varviso, The Guardian, Tim Ashley, 13 June 2008, 1 January 2010, Other notable productions included their 1980s production of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, directed by Trevor Nunn, and later expanded from the Glyndebourne stage and videotaped in 1993 for television, with Nunn again directing. While Mozart operas have continued to be the mainstay of its repertory, the company has expanded it with productions of JanáčekNEWS,weblink Katya Kabanova, The Guardian, Tim Ashley, 4 June 2002, 1 January 2010, NEWS,weblink The Makropulos Case: London Philharmonic/Davis, The Guardian, Andrew Clements, 31 October 2003, 1 January 2010, and HandelNEWS,weblink Giulio Cesare, The Guardian, Martin Kettle, 24 May 2009, 1 January 2010, operas.The primary resident orchestra for the Glyndebourne Festival is the London Philharmonic Orchestra (since 1964). The festival's associate orchestra is the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. In January 2014, Robin Ticciati became the seventh music director of the company.PRESS RELEASE,weblink Robin Ticciati will be Festival Music Director from January 2014, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, 1 July 2011, 2 July 2011, dead,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110702052021weblink">weblink 2 July 2011, NEWS,weblink Glyndebourne baton handed to Robin Ticciati, The Guardian, Maeve Kennedy, 1 July 2011, 1 July 2011, Past general directors of the festival have included David Pickard.PRESS RELEASE,weblink David Pickard appointed Director, BBC Proms, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, 26 May 2015, 22 November 2015, In November 2015, the festival announced the appointment of Sebastian F. Schwarz as its general director, effective in May 2016.PRESS RELEASE,weblink Glyndebourne Appoints New General Director, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, 17 November 2015, 22 November 2015, In March 2018 Schwarz stepped down as general director.PRESS RELEASE,weblink Sebastian F. Schwarz steps down as General Director of Glyndebourne, Glyndebourne Opera, 4 December 2017, 18 August 2018, In August 2018, the festival announced the appointment of Stephen Langridge as its next artistic director, effective in the spring of 2019.PRESS RELEASE,weblink Stephen Langridge appointed Artistic Director of Glyndebourne, Glyndebourne Opera, 9 August 2018, 18 August 2018, The festival operates without subsidy. Its first placement of advertisements was in 2003.NEWS,weblink Inclusive engagement, The Guardian, Charlotte Higgins, 15 May 2003, 12 February 2007, The festival has planned to incorporate power by wind turbine, as part of its "green" initiatives.NEWS,weblink How British opera reinvented itself, The Guardian, Charlotte Higgins, 30 November 2009, 1 January 2010, Many Glyndebourne attendees come from London, and the event is regarded as part of the English summer season. Performances start in the afternoon, enabling Londoners to leave town after lunch, and finish in time for them to catch the last train back. A long interval allows opera-goers the opportunity for picnic dinners on the extensive lawns or in one of the restaurants in the grounds. Annually in London, the company presents an opera performance at The Proms.NEWS,weblink Cosi fan tutte (Royal Albert Hall, London), The Guardian, Martin Kettle, 20 July 2006, 1 January 2010,

Music directors

• Fritz Busch (1934–1951)
• Vittorio Gui (1952–1963)
• John Pritchard (1964–1977)
• Bernard Haitink (1978–1988)
• Andrew Davis (1989–2000)
• Vladimir Jurowski (2001–2013)
• Robin Ticciati (2014–present)

{{anchor|On Tour}} Glyndebourne on Tour

(File:Glyndebourne On Tour.jpg|thumb|The Glyndebourne on Tour trailer)In 1968, Glyndebourne Festival Opera established a touring ensemble, Glyndebourne Touring Opera, which in its first season took opera productions to Newcastle, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield and Oxford. In addition to bringing the work of Glyndebourne Festival Opera to audiences some distance from Glyndebourne, Glyndebourne Touring Opera offers opportunities for younger opera singers to develop their craft. In 2003, the Glyndebourne Touring Opera administrative duties were absorbed back into the main Glyndebourne Festival Opera administration, and the touring company was renamed Glyndebourne on Tour. The touring company now has the name of Glyndebourne Tour. Unlike Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Glyndebourne Tour does receive some subsidy, from the Arts Council England.As of 2022, the Tour performs in the Milton Keynes Theatre, the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury, the Theatre Royal in Norwich and the Liverpool Empire Theatre.NEWS, Tour, Glyndebourne, 2022,weblink 14 November 2022, The tour normally takes place in autumn following the festival season, and typically includes three weeks of performances at Glyndebourne, followed by one week in each of the other locations. The touring ensemble has separate music directors, as follows:

• Myer Fredman (1968–1974)
• Kenneth Montgomery (1975–1976)
• Nicholas Braithwaite (1977–1980)
• Jane Glover (1982–1985)Norwich, p. 226, lists the first four GTO music directors
• Graeme Jenkins (1986–1991)
• Ivor Bolton (1992–1997)
• Louis Langrée (1998–2003)
• Edward Gardner (2004–2007)
• Robin Ticciati (2007–2009)
• Jakub Hrůša (2010–2012)
• Ben Glassberg (2019–2021, principal conductor)

Ticciati is the first former music director of Glyndebourne on Tour to be named music director of the full Glyndebourne Festival Opera company. Glyndebourne Festival Opera has also toured internationally, including the Adelaide Festival in 2006 with its production of Flight by Jonathan Dove and April De Angelis.In January 2023, the company announced that the planned 2023 Glyndebourne on Tour season will not occur, as a result of the reduced funding from Arts Council England for the 2023–2026 National Portfolio.PRESS RELEASE,weblink Glyndebourne is unable to tour in 2023, Glyndebourne Festival Orchestra, 6 January 2023, 6 January 2023, In December 2023, the company announced the appointment of Adam Hickox as the new principal conductor of Glyndebourne Sinfonia, the new name for the Glyndebourne on Tour Orchestra, with immediate effect.PRESS RELEASE,weblink Adam Hickox appointed as new Principal Conductor of Glyndebourne Sinfonia, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, 4 December 2023, 6 January 2024,

Finances

Glyndebourne is constituted as a registered charity called Glyndebourne Productions Limited, which is a company limited by guarantee. It has a wholly owned subsidiary, Glyndebourne Enterprises Limited, which carries out merchandising, production hire and media development activities, and donates its profits to the charity. A related charity called the Glyndebourne Arts Trust carries out fund-raising activities. Glyndebourne Association America allows residents of the United States to make tax efficient donations to Glyndebourne.WEB, Glyndebourne: a brief history,weblink The Telegraph, 30 June 2015, Glyndebourne has an annual budget of a little over £20 million, as of 2010. The Festival is the only major opera season in the United Kingdom which is not state subsidised. Glyndebourne on Tour receives an annual subsidy of around £1.5 million from Arts Council England, but is budgeted to make an annual loss even after this has been credited. The shortfall is covered by an internal cross subsidy.

Other media

The Glyndebourne Label was established in 2008 to release live recordings on CD. Commercial releases have included Mozart's Idomeneo (with Luciano Pavarotti and Gundula Janowitz), Dvořák's Rusalka and Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd. During the music directorship of Vladimir Jurowski,NEWS,weblink New baton, The Guardian, Fiachra Gibbons, 26 August 2000, 12 February 2007, NEWS,weblink A tale of two festivals, The Guardian, Tim Ashley and Caroline Sullivan, 17 May 2002, 12 February 2007, the festival began its "Glyndebourne on Screen" programme, for viewers to see performances from the festival in cinemas and live-streaming on personal computers, the latter in partnership with The Guardian newspaper.

See also

• Country house opera
• (Glyndebourne Festival Opera: history and repertoire, 1934–51)
• (Glyndebourne Festival Opera: history and repertoire, 1952–63)
• List of music festivals in the United Kingdom

References

Notes

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Sources

• Kennedy, Michael, Glyndebourne: A Brief History, Oxford: Shire Publications, 2010. {{ISBN|978-0-7478-0821-3}}
• Norwich, John Julius, Fifty Years of Glyndebourne, London: Cape, 1985 {{ISBN|0-224-02310-1}}

External links

• Glyndebourne Festival Opera website

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